tiger oscars with hith?

Question

hi everyone, i have a few tiger oscars and i have just noticed that they all have small pinpricks in thier heads. is this hith disease because i am not sure if they were always there. the oscars behave completely normal, theyre very active. the water is frequently changed and i never give them feeder fish. so yeah any one know how to tell if my fish have hole in the head disease and if so how to treat it. thanks

what do you mean medicate it, what do i put. does that mean my fish have hith?

Answer 1

Despite what people think they believe, not even the pro's are really sure what causes HITH. Lousy water is certainly one and likely the most common reason, but a poor diet and other stressful factors can also contribute. So, for that matter, can poor breeding.

Also, while wounds from this disease will always be present, you absolutely can get a hold of the problem and keep it from progressing.

The first thing you need to do is figure out what went wrong. You say you have a few Oscars - then you should have a really big tank. A 75 gallon is excellent for one and barely adequate for a pair. A group of them would need a huge tank of 300 gallons or more, not only because they are messy and big, but also because they are territorial. Speaking of territorial, make sure there isn't fighting in the tank, or this will promote diseases like this.

Also, you want to make sure you feed them a healthy and varied diet. It is good you don't use feeder fish, but they should still get other fresh supplements (frozen or live) like worms, insects, shrimp, krill, crayfish, and insect larvae. Their staple diet should be a high quality cichlid food that is well stored to keep fresh and replaced if too much time goes by.

For medicating the problem, use a strong med like clout, which usually does the trick.

Answer 2

If this is anything more than pores on his face then you may be dealing with HITH. In it's earliest stages HITH is very difficult to distingush from a heximita infestation without lab tests. To be sure your covering your bases, I would suggest you treat the tank with Flagyl (Metronidazole) in case it's a heximita infestation and also carefully consider the fish's diet and water quality. HITH is closely linked to poor water quality and a substandard diet. Perhaps additional filtration is needed as Oscars are rather messy feeders? Maybe they aren't getting enough variety in thier diet? I would suggest you feed the widest possible variety of foods including a good staple pellet, fish fillets, worms of various sorts and some vegetable matter. I generally feed once a day with a pellet or flake and once a day with some other food, like the above mentioned. Hope this helps and best of luck with it.

MM

Answer 3

HITH will be open holes,probably 2 or 3mm in diameter. If the marks on your Oscars heads look like "dimples" they are OK. If they look sort of like an open cavity then it's probably HITH. Treatment of HITH is iffy at best,the damage is already done by the time it's diagnosed. Good water condition practices are the best preventative.

Answer 4

oscars seem to have this problem often. I won't ever have another oscar (too much trouble) Don't get me wrong, they are awesome friendly fish. Unless you do water changes weekly or more, they seem to get hole in the head. My advice is to keep the water quality very clean by doing partial water changes once a week or more.

Answer 5

you could commence through doing a thorough sparkling on the tank, partial water change, gravel cleansing. yet so a thoughts as that there is not a lot of a reliable treatment available. There are claims to what might want to artwork yet not something depending.

Answer 6

It's caused by a parasite. Increase the temp of your water to just over 80 degrees, and medicate the tank.

Answer 7

I would say to leave them alone. I left mine alone and they were all fine and the Ich was gone by the end of the week.